


And then.

by orphan_account



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-03 18:16:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie found herself looking for her family.  Again.  And was it wisdom, experience or something else that meant the trail to finding them wound its way past Monroe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a seriously tiny little chapter posted entirely to goad me into finishing this story off...

'Corpus Christi.' Charlie rolled the words across her tongue. Stood staring at the road signs pointing towards town. Shook her head against a bug that landed on her upper lip. Felt a drop of sweat slip down her neck and took a drink from her canteen.

'All road lead to Corpus Christi.' She said to herself.

She stepped aside suddenly as a wagon barrelled down the road towards her. People on horseback and foot could be seen stretched out along the road making their way towards the town. Families mostly from the look of it. Looking for the better life. Happy to be pulling in off the dusty roads and former highways, heads lifting at the faint smell of the gulf now in the air, salty and humid. 

Charlie was just looking for family. Again.

She tugged her back pack higher on her shoulders and tucked her crossbow in under her arm. It had been over a year since she had used it to do anything but hunt out food and threaten unwary men, horny, violent or poor. Whatever. She could take care of most anything.

A year during which she had been much alone. Travelling mostly. Shaking the previous two years out of her bones. Thinking things through. Not necessarily far from her mom and Miles and Grandpa in Willoughby, but not with them either. A month since first her mom and then Miles had just vanished. Disappeared. Charlie, being Charlie had started searching, following trails, listening to whispers. Two weeks earlier the trail had gone stone cold dead. And soon a different song was being sung in the bars and dives she tended to haunt.

'I don't know about Miles Matheson, but I heard Sebastian Monroe is down Corpus Christi way...'

And so now, so was she.

Body of christ, someone had told her. Well. Sorta. Well. She would see.


	2. Chapter 2

Charlie wandered up and down the waterfront and around the streets that led to it. This was likely as good as anywhere to start looking for Monroe. Her stomach churned uneasily and she walked again up and down a couple of streets, just making time. She realised she didn't have enough money for a cheap motel and it was different sleeping out in a town. She caught sight of herself in a window, hazy through old wavy glass but clearly still her, sunburnt and slightly... wild looking. The crossbow didn't help. 

Walking quickly Charlie headed into the first bar she came to and walked straight into the bathroom. Any mirrors were long since gone but there was a large plastic tub of water and a jug to scoop it out with. She spent five happy minutes washing any part of her that needed it, damping down her hair and twisting it into a plait down her back, shrugging out of her jacket and slapping the dust out of it before doing the same down her legs and stomping her shoes to rid them of the road dust. Better.

At the bar she ordered a cheap whisky. Sat and sipped it for a few minutes. Asked after Monroe after the second drink slipped down.

Nothing. No one in Corpus Christi had ever seen Monroe. 

She tried another bar.

Nothing.

And another. And another. Every shitty divey little bar and tavern until she ran out of money. Now she just wanted to keep drinking and wipe this stupid day out. God, it was hopeless. She lay her head on her arms against the bar and tried to work out what to do. She was drunk and feeling a bit ...belligerent. She wanted to howl and shout and throw something. She wanted one of the men at the bar to approach her so she could knock him back, or knock him out or just...something. Anything. She knew from experience that maudlin would kick in any minute and she started to gather her things to leave. No point in weeping silently and alone at a bar. She would walk back out of town until she had sobered up and find place to sleep. Decide what to do tomorrow. Push down hopelessness a little further.

She turned and there he was. Monroe. One hand reaching out to steady her as she almost slipped from her stool. Face carefully blank.

'Your head is gonna hurt tomorrow, Charlotte.'

She closed her eyes against the growl of his voice and let out an enormous sigh. Felt her shoulders drop an inch.

He signalled for a drink and got her one too. 

'What are you doing here Charlie? I hear you've been asking for me all over town.'

'I'm looking for Miles.'

He said nothing for a minute.

'Well, I'm not. Good luck with that.' He finished his drink with big swallow and got up as if to leave.

'Fooling nobody by pretending to leave.' She said quietly. 

He had the grace to laugh and sank back down onto his stool.

'Yeah, okay.' He said nothing more. Just looked at her expectantly.

'I need help.'

'I am fresh out.'

'You owe me.' It sounded desperate and sad even to Charlie's own ears.

'Nope.'

'Then I'd owe you.'

He ordered another drink. 

Charlie looked him over. On the stool beside him he had laid his leather jacket - the same one she had last seen him wearing when he had steamed out of Willoughby over a year ago. She always wondered if she would hear news of him at command of some group of soldiers, the head of an army, but it had all gone so quiet. Until she had started looking for her mom and Miles she hadn't heard a word of him at all. It had left an odd shaped gap in her life.

It had surprised them all. His leaving like that. Shocked Miles for months. Miles who had walked around looking like he'd forgotten what he was going to say, or couldn't remember what he was looking for. Like something was always missing. Finally he was the thing that was missing. Him and her mom. Vanished off the face of the earth. She looked up and realised Bass had watched her get lost in her thoughts and was now waiting for her to say something. 

She was drunk, dazed, dirty. She had walked for a month to find something, news of Mom and Miles. A lead, something to follow. She had found Bass. Right now it was enough.

'Please, Bass.'

'What do you want?'

'I want to have not one worry.'

He huffed and shook his head once.

'I can't help you with that.'

She ignored him and kept talking.

'Just one night of not one worry. I want to buy dinner and sleep in a bed..... Actually you are going to have to buy dinner... I have no money left.'

He raised an eyebrow at her but nodded and said nothing.

'I want a bath. I need new shoes. I have a funny lump on my shin that won't go away and the skin behind my ear has gone all rough. My mother has disappeared along with my uncle. Everything I own smells like...soup....' He was starting to laugh, just quietly, and he put his arm on her wrist to show there was no harm in it.

She was on a roll.

'I need new underwear. My elbow aches when it's rainy. My toenail fell off yesterday. My mother and Miles have fucking vanished. I have nowhere to stay. I have no money.'

'Yep, Charlie, I heard the no money bit the first time.' He huffed a laugh again and finished his drink. 

She just looked at him.

'You can stay at my place tonight.' He said finally.

'You have a place?'

'I have a place.'

'Are you saying you will help me?'

'C'mon, let's get some food. There's a shoe place down the corner from here. We can see if they have anything that fits you. We can sort out the rest as we go.'

Charlie wobbled off her stool and stood in front of him. God, she was really drunk.

'Are you saying that you'll help me?'

'You can tell me more about it once we get...home.'

'That's a yes then....Weird to think about you having a home.' She gathered up her things clumsily.

'Yeah, well I was liking it here. The simple life. No Mathesons to distract me.'

'Sorry.'

'Unlikely.' He said roughly and she didn't correct him. 

'Ahh, that's the Matheson trait I always admired the most, just there.' He pointed at her and ushered her out the door and along the street.

'What....?'

'Unrepentant. Make no apologies. Offer no quarter. You Mathesons all have it in spades. Even Rachel.'

'Especially her. It's a family failing.' Charlie tried to breeze over it but was made uncomfortably aware of how badly she had failed when she looked up and saw Bass' eyes watching her with sympathy.

'I don't need rescuing Bass.'

'I know that Charlotte.'

She stopped walking and tried to see into his eyes again. For one dizzy moment she thought he was going to kiss her and she knew she had been sort of waiting for it. That she had always wondered about it. But when she cleared her head to look up at him he was just watching her. Hands stuffed into his back pockets. Wary. She stumbled a bit on the street. Very drunk. 

'I don't.' She said again.

He reached out to take her hand to steady her as they began to walk.

'I do know that Charlie. Besides. Only a fool would come to Sebastian Monroe looking for rescue.'


	3. Chapter 3

Charlie woke up tented by white sheets. Nubs of old cotton polyester irritating her nose. Warmth and dip in the mattress by her side. Bass, waiting for her to wake up.

Last night she had followed him home. Walked a couple of miles until people stared, acknowledging him, catching his eye and smiling as he walked past and people were practically tipping their hats to him as he passed by. He'd stopped at a doorway. Smiled briefly at a group of kids, held up five fingers and waggled them at them. Five. The kids had bounced back smiles at him, each happily loading up with a big bucket of water and headed up the flights of stairs to Bass's home. Twelve flights of stairs, pitch black. Feeling along the corridor, chattering all the way. 'So, Bass, who is the girl?' 'So Bass, you need help tomorrow?' 'Bass?', 'Bass'...

'Are you the pied piper?'

'Come on Charlie...' he'd ushered her into the room, relieved her of her cross bow and pack, pressed a cup of water into her hands and watched as she fell asleep, rough and dirty and relieved on his bed. New second hand boots sleepily kicked off as she she'd shrugged off her jacket and looked around her. She'd seen a cupboard full of guns and rooms hastily closed against her gaze before she swayed drunk and sleepy into bed.

When she woke up Charlie felt the sense of curiosity that came after nights of big drinking.

Bass of course. That was what she had come for. After all.

She stretched. Felt the pull of jeans and belt at her waist. Spoke into the light and silence in the room.

'What have you been doing here?'

He didn't reply. Ran his hand up her arm and passed her a cup of lukewarm...something.

'Got it down stairs.... it's tea, kind of... there's a ...shop...just drink it.'

She drank it. Grateful to be washing away the taste of last nights whisky and sadness. Everything felt better in the morning.

'Bass, what have you been doing here?'

'Listen Charlie. I know some people who might be able to help and I will let people I know I would appreciate them helping you but....'

'Last night you said....'

'No. I didn't. I can't.'

'Are you kidding me?'

He said nothing for a few moments. Looked down at his jeans and old threadbare shirt. Bare toes curling in old worn carpet. Each arm wearing a sleeve of scars, marks and wounds. This was the most alone they had ever been. 

'It is not good for me to be swept up in this again.' Charlie's eyes widened. 

And god, god, it was hard. Because Charlie knew exactly what that meant. Tank top slipping off her shoulder, mouthful of sand, grubby sticky fingers and toes and everything else. She thought longingly of those buckets of water, hoped he'd got enough for her to get clean. She wondered what her life could be like if she just said no. Enough. I won't chase anymore. I'm done. She looked at Bass. 

'I'm really sorry about this.'

He looked at her. Pressed his arms to is sides to stop himself from touching her.

'You heard about all the god stuff right?'

He nodded but looked to her and waited for more.

'God's let loose all over the plains, old Texas, everywhere. Tents, revivals, baptismal rivers, preachers...' she pulled herself up and took a big gulp of lukewarm tea.

'Every second town has a new god. Every river is becoming sacred,every mountain, hell, every hill has new meaning. And at the root of it all, nanites. People are dying by the hundred, Bass. Every day a new cult seems to spring up fully formed. Each with it's own rules and regulations. Each leaving a trail of dead, gullible used people in its wake.'

Bass shifted uncomfortably.

'Yeah, I heard god was alive and saving souls all over.'

'You didn't think it was weird?'

'I thought it was weird. I just didn't think it was my problem.'

'That is where you and my mom differ."

'Not the only place... please tell me your mom didn't get caught up in all this god bothering nonsense.'

'Have you met my mother? Of course she had to stop it. It was "her science project"...She and Miles both. They had a mission..'

'Miles had a mission?'

'Sort of. Sometimes it seemed more like a past time... for him...' they both smiled. It helped to be with someone who knew. 

'And then one of the big groups from the south swept through and mom got caught up in it. Trying to tell them it was just the nanites playing them, trying to persuade them to be rational... and then... just gone... and Miles too....

'Jesus Christ, Charlie..... There are a lot, a lot of reasons I'm not the right person to help you with this.' He said quietly.

'If I can't stop, then neither can you.'

He stretched his neck and sighed.

'But I can stop Charlie. I have stopped. I have a whole life that has nothing to do with whatever fool thing the Matheson family wants. I have a.... way of life.....'

'You are running guns, and god knows what else... even drunk out of my mind I could see that last night as we walked in.'

'Guns and information, advice...whatever people need.' He was gruff and unapologetic.. Something in the tilt of his head daring her to judge. Daring her to find fault.

'I need.... your help.'

'That is not the same thing.'

'No. It's even better.'

She leaned forward, into his space where he crouched on the mattress beside her. Pressed a kiss into the side of his cheek, waited while he kept his eyes on the stained carpet in front of him. When he looked sideways at her she took his hand. It was meant to be reassuring. She kissed her way around his jaw, pressed her mouth to the corner of his.

'I can do this without you Bass, but I so, so do not want to have to.'

'Oh fucking hell.'

He held her gaze for along minute before finally shrugging. When he spoke it was accusing.

'You knew I wouldn't be able to say no, didn't you?'

'I had a feeling.'


	4. Chapter 4

One of them would push closer and the other would pull away. That was how they were together. They had been unsure of each other since those kisses on the bed this morning. 

She could admit that she had been the first to play this game she thought to herself, stepping out of the way of a man pulling an old pallet trolley full of odds and ends to sell at the market she could see up ahead. She was trying to keep up with Bass as he strode towards the busiest corner, following him all through Corpus Christi as he 'did his rounds'. She was having to take brief little double steps to keep up with his strides and he seemed reluctant to slow down for her. Looking at her as though she was some kind of faint annoyance following him around. She glared at him when he gave her that look. Pinched his arm meanly between finger and thumb and narrowed her eyes at him. She had Miles to give her those 'are you still here' disbelief looks, thank you very much. But Bass had just ignored it all, the look, the fingers on his wrist and kept on walking.

Yep, she had pulled the first cut and run. That last night after the big fight with the patriots, the nanites and whoever else stood up and pointed a gun their way. She could remember the relief she felt when Bass finally turned up late that night. Miles' faith in him finally played out. Rachel's quiet 'thank you Bass' hanging in the air.

Charlie's relief had quicksilvered into wanting. She had taken him by surprise maybe but Bass had caught up fast and they had moved into messy, touchy kisses, open mouths sliding all over. Nosing behind her ears, two fists of hair pulling her up to meet his mouth and then hitching her legs around his waist while he pressed the hard line of his cock against her, 'ah, there....yes, there.' Clothes making way for skin.

Only the sound of her mother calling 'Charlie.... Charlie?' had stopped them.

Charlie had slipped away. Tugged her top down and heard the thump of his fist against the old wooding siding he had backed her against. Hadn't known (couldn't have known) he'd be gone by morning.

And so now here she was. Being shown around Corpus Christi like a goddamn tourist. Watching while Bass tied up loose ends. Asked around for information. Sure, it was a good thing, he said he would help her but she was feeling a bit funny now. Uncertain. He had pulled away from her kisses this morning. And from the way she'd woken, starfished across the bed in a drunken sprawl, she'd most likely slept alone. Now when she did manage to catch up with him as he strode along the streets of town and walk beside him for a minute or two he looked at her with the kind of wary watchfulness he has previously reserved only for Miles. Whatever defences she had breached they were all firmly back in place. He practically had a sign on him that read 'Mathesons keep out!'

She was getting an eyeful of his life here though. The life he had chosen away from them all, away from Miles and Connor and well... her. At first she thought he was showing off. Hangover making her cranky, she found all the backslaps and handshakes he received as he walked through town annoying. After an hour or so she could see though, there was just something about him that couldn't resist empire building. It was second nature to him. The snatches she caught of conversations she heard when he leant in and talked quietly to the people he had come to see 'I'll be gone for a while.' 'Not sure how long.' 'Keep an eye on things for me here.' 'I'll be heading north.' Send word along the road if you hear anything about...'

Charlie was suddenly furious that he pulled so far away from her, from them, from the whole catastrophe Rachel and Bass and Miles had made of all their lives. Envy flooded her. She cast about for something to say, feeling sharp and ungrateful in her new boots and clean clothes and sweetly smelling hair.

'Gun running? Really Bass?' Scorn dripping from her tongue.

'Jesus you sound like Miles.'

The silence cracked between them.

'I'm still the one doing you a favour right? That's still how this plays? He stopped walking abruptly and looked at her.

She grumbled at him under her breath and looked away.

He considered her carefully, cracked his knuckles brutally and rocked between his toes and heels thoughtfully for a few moments before finally just letting out a reluctant huff of laughter.

'In my defence, it didn't start as gun running...' he trailed off and started walking again. She hurried to keep up but he said nothing more.

'Like trying to get blood from a stone, Monroe.' She said failing to keep the impatience from her tone, flinching inwardly when his eyebrows shot up in disbelief. Again.

'Is that right, Matheson.'

'Bass' said like an apology. Really she didn't know why she was snarling at him so much.

'Charlotte.' Apology accepted, her name said in a low rasp, that voice, tucked in behind her ear and she felt a little throb of pleasure spike through her.

She really needed to start thinking before speaking because the next thing she knew she could hear herself asking, 'Have you heard from Connor?' and Bass took a huge step back and turned away to start walking down a street, deeper into the stalls and stands of the marketplace. Food stands and racks of old clothes obscuring her view of his quickly before she scrambled to keep up. When she did he looked at her out of the side of his eye.

'Let's just agree not to talk about Connor, okay?'

He grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her along. Talking quickly to change the subject.

'So Charlie, what am I going to find out there on the open road? If I'm packing up my life here and casting my lot in with you for the sake of your ..family again. What is it like?

Here at least was a conversation Charlie could take part in without accidentally stepping on every land mine of their past. She told him about the travelling wagons loaded with preachers and tents and witness. Small towns and isolated villages following pray to to the excitement of the nanites visitations on the gullible populations. Fireflies, electrical storms. Animals behaving oddly. Signs everywhere of a new god, a new power. And everywhere the nanites showed themselves people were divided about their meaning. Some people needing so desperately to believe that they packed their families meagre lives up and joined the wagons trains of preaches and believers. Others deeply suspicious. Small misunderstandings and differences of opinion amplified and exploited. Death and religion seeping into the landscape.

Even more bewildering to Charlie was the talk of witches and covens and magics that sprang up at the same time. Worship taking on strange forms across the battered plains. Charlie had been at her grandpas' place when a neighbour returned from visiting relatives had excitedly related stories of a coven up north. Miles had smirked into his glass, unsurprised by people's ability to believe and do the stupidest things. Rachel had blanched, slowly allowing her head to drop to the table she was sitting at, guilt and shame weighing her head down until Miles had put aside his glass, lifted her up by the elbows and walked her outside to get some air.

'That was the moment, just then I suppose.' Charlie told Bass as he steered her towards a table at a small market food stall and nodded to the owner to bring over drinks. He waited for her to continue.

Charlie gulped down the water placed in front of her.

'The moment Mom found her next fight. The next battle. No way she could let people be fooled by childish tales told to scare children.... witches and demons and a harsh demanding god preached on the back of a wagon all het up on nanites and their... games.' 

'We will find your mom and Miles, Charlie, but even when we do... you know she can't help herself. She's just going to throw herself back in...whoever is keeping her now to try and keep her quiet? Just one of many from the sounds of things. You told me last night she had been trying to work with the members of a group called Heavens Gate... trying to persuade them that the nanites weren't god sent... but there are a lot of those groups from sounds of things and your mom, well she sometimes can be a bit...what?' He was looking at her now, eyes questioning.

Charlie felt a blush of shame fire into her cheeks. She couldn't quite remember telling him so much about her family's predicament that last night. She wondered what else she had let slip.

'Hmmm.' He said, reading her mind. 'There was not much you didn't feel like saying last night Charlotte.'

Colour raged across her cheeks and down her neck.

He laughed suddenly. 'I liked it.'

She closed her eyes for a moment and willed the blush to go down. Fought against the instinct to stand up and storm off or say something mean and defensive.

Bass leaned back easily in his chair.

'We'll call it even, Charlie.' He said.

She opened her eyes at the sound of a plate of food being slid in front of her. Bass scooped up knife and fork and started to eat.

'You always knew too much about me anyway.' He said around a mouthful of food.

Yes, she did. That she knew just what he was capable of and what he had done was strangely reassuring just at the minute.

She picked up her fork. Decided just to say it, to tell him.

'About three weeks ago Bass, I started hearing rumours that you were around these parts. Rumours that you were trading guns and swords, selling information, giving advice, tactics.'

'All true. I told you that. You have let me know your feelings about this twice already..'

She ignored him.

'So I came here to find you because I needed help and because I...you...' She stumbled over her words, watched him fork food into his mouth like he was starving.

'Spit it out Charlie. Whatever you need to say.'

'Why did you pull away this morning?'

'Shit. Not what I was expecting.' He picked up his water and gulped it down, 'Christ Charlie, are you just going to keep on saying uncomfortable stuff today. All this truth seeking is ... unsettling.'

She said nothing. Just kept her eyes trained on him and waited.

'I want... I need to be .. sure of you first.' He said quietly. Like he had been waiting to say this to her ever since he had first seen her yesterday sitting drunk and angry at a bar. She couldn't really fault him for it.

'I am.. a sure thing Bass.' It was both over confident and revealing and she cringed a bit at how cocky she sounded.

'Yeah well, I'm about to leave my life here, a good life, to go out on the road with you again. In search of Miles and Rachel and a whole world of stupid unnecessary risk, in search of Miles and Rachel...' he repeated disbelief heavy and bitter in his voice, '...who have been taken up by witches or a cult or just some over eager god nonsense talking preacher's goons, with you. Charlotte Matheson. Exactly everything I had sworn off. You and your fucking uncle.'

'So you had better be a sure thing, Charlotte. And you know I'm not talking about sex. You. You had better be a sure thing.'

'I am.'

He leaned in to to kiss her now. She felt suddenly aware of all the eyes around this town that were watching them. All those backslaps and shakes, were now people, clearly taking her measure. Wondering who this new woman in town was and what she was doing with Sebastien Monroe. Why he was leaving. But Bass just pressed a hard kiss against her mouth and returned to his meal scooping up the last mouthfuls.

'Horses.'

She looked up at him, momentarily flustered.

'What?'

'We'll go and get horses next.'

'You remember the part where I told you that I had no money right?'

'I remember it well. Let's just go get your family. Do what it takes. Sort the rest out later. You know which way we are heading right?'

She took a folded sheaf of papers out of her pocket and spread it on the able before him. A map drawn in Miles blunt scrawl. The names of preachers and cults in a much added to list down the side. The name Heavens Gate heavily underlined and circled twice. A messy circle around a few small towns on the map and an arrow connecting the two.

'How far is it from here?' He asked.

'I am not sure. Hard to get people to talk about it too much. A week, maybe two.'

'I was on your way then?'

'Just lucky I guess.'


	5. Chapter 5

Charlie woke the next morning to find her hand pressing along Bass' back, thumb chasing the faded lines that crossed it. Traced the ridge of each line. She was warm, quiet, content. When he stirred she realised he had been awake for some time because his hand went straight to the brand on her wrist, tracing up and down the M still so unbearably sensitive after all this time. She turned and tucked herself tighter into his side. Too early to face all this with the the sun only just starting to rise. They did not talk about the scars, just ran their fingers along them as if to say _'This is what family can do to you. This is what it did to me. This is how I remember to be careful.'_

 

 

They would be leaving today. That decision made yesterday afternoon on the way home after they finished lunch. Whatever leisure they had pretended they had in the morning gone as their steps quickened and they made it closer and closer to his apartment. They would have only one night in his quiet white bed and Charlie was almost running to get there.

Every swaying step up to his front door just ahead of him, felt him hustle her against the door, pressed her hair away from her shoulder and leaned in to take a small hard bite at the muscle where shoulder and neck joined. Breathed in deeply and kissed it, sucked it into a little mark. One hand snaked around to slide into her jeans and the other came around to cup her, slip into her bra and roll the flat of her nipple up into his palm. Squeezed gently and laughed into her impatience.

'Door, Bass, door.'

He pulled her aside to open the door and nodded at the kids as they delivered water buckets straight into the kitchen. When the door shut behind their chatter he pushed her straight towards the bed, stripping off their jackets, holding her as she hopped on one foot and then the other to slide off boots and socks and then did the same himself. She sat down on the mattress and slithered out of her jeans and underwear, got her bra hooks caught in her tank top when she tried to pull both off over her head at the same time in her hurry. When she was finally untangled and looked up at him, he was naked and hard right in front of her eyes. He crawled up over her and then pressed himself against and _god, the weight of him against her._ She closed her eyes against the sudden truth of it all. She was really doing this. With him.

He pulled a nipple into his mouth and slid his fingers between her legs. Charlie's fingers gripped the back of his thighs and along his ribs. She felt his cock twitch between them, against the heat of her belly, down low where she was starting to feel all wound up. Felt the moisture starting to seep from the top of him and spread across her skin, the answering wetness he was slicking his fingers through between her folds. He chased a hand down her and hooked under her knee, pulled it up and settled between her thighs. Pushed the pillows out from under her head and pulled her higher up the bed with him. She felt her knee fall open and her legs shake as he ran tight circles around her clitoris. The other hand pulling her tight against him, squeezing her bottom as she nosed against his neck and behind his ears, ran her fingers down his back and grabbed hold of his ass, fingers shaping the hard jut of it.

When he finally thrust into her she was gone within a few hard strokes. So was he. Finally.

 

 

Bass packed guns and ammunition into a tight roll he planned to tie to his horse, Charlie wandered through the weapons rooms and picked up a few things she would keep for herself. A couple of knives, a longer blade. Tucked a few extras into her pack. Balanced her crossbow and arrows across the top of it and then wrapped a few bands of leather around the straps of her pack for padding. All set. The sounds of Bass packing and getting ready had stopped and she went to look for him. Found him staring out the window in the living room, right near the bed, forehead pressed against the glass. He turned around to look at her evenly, giving nothing away before he cleared his throat.

'I'm ready to go.'

'Yeah, me too.'

 

Leaving Corpus Christi was hard for them both. She had thought they would fall into the old patterns, they had travelled together before, on their way to Willoughby and they had fought back to back so often she knew him well in ways she could not describe. But everything had changed when he asked for her loyalty and she had offered it. It was all starting to spin around in her head. Was she on her way to get her family? Or was she deciding who that family would be? Did this mean that she thought Bass was part of her family now? Was he? How did this even work at all? They weren't even really getting on all that well. Bass trusted her judgement about the road, the risk, their plans but her, _her,_ not a bit.

 

Sometimes Charlie and Bass travelled alone through the days, separating for a few hours agreeing to meet at night and waiting for each other in small towns. The would eat before falling together into grubby motels and rooms. Once the smell and dust of the road was washed off them Bass always waited for Charlie to make the first move. Each night she felt like she had to prove that this, this was what she really wanted. He was scrupulous about pulling out. This, this only, he seemed to be trying to say.

Charlie took off early in the mornings when he was being kind of bad company. Grumpy and surly and offering only half grunted conversations. That annoying cocky swagger. Hard to decide which was worse. She knew she really wasn't much better company. At times her mind would flash through everything she had done, everything she knew he had done and she would get stuck, not able to shake the thoughts from her head. All of a sudden she would just freak out. Everything he had done to her family. Images tumbling across her mind, unstoppable. And then the very next thought would be _'oh god, I sucked him right down into my throat last night,_ ' or ' _I held his mouth to my nipple so he would not stop_ ' and ' _I bit that line of bruises into his neck_ ,' and she would stop in her tracks as a pulse of shame rushed though her, scrunch her eyes shut and try to shake her head as if to leave it all behind.

When he noticed the tight line of her shoulder and the hard pull of her neck he would back away from her, leaving her to storm off up ahead or fall back. They would only end up shouting at each other if they stayed close at these times. They had decided to sell the horses a couple of days earlier and it was easier without them in this country. Water and good feed being hard to come by and the diamonds would come in handy. Still it meant that they were stuck staying closer to each other and it just made her feel so damn .... reliant. Not so good for her temper.

Using the scribble of a map that Miles had left they traced a route winding, north, north east, picking up bits and pieces of the group known as Heavens Gate as they went. Each town Heavens Gate had passed through had felt the brunt of the travelling evangelical circus. In some cases whole families had picked up and left with them. Other had been left behind, families torn apart when people couldn't agree on the meaning and import of the 'lights in the night sky' or the strange occurrences that happened around them. The closer to Heavens Gate they got the more suspicious and wrecked people who had contact with the group seemed. Whatever was happening, the tension was racketing up.

More and more scuffles and fights were breaking out along the road now and she knew she would need to be staying closer to Bass throughout the days if they were to stay safe all the way to the Heavens Gate tents. The fights themselves had been nothing much so far and Charlie had found it a relief to have somebody else to fight against. Other than this always present war between her and Bass that only seemed to abate at night when they pulled each other closer.

They both relished those first clangs of steel and knives, punches thrown, nothing fatal just enough to warn other people off. They had compared the tremors running through their hands after that first bash of steel laughingly. That first rush of adrenaline had lit Bass up. He smiled when Charlie teased him about it gently that night after he had taken her, properly just had his way with her, after a brief and bloody fight with paranoid land holders on the edge of another small town. She had loved it too. _'I think Sebastian Monroe just made an entrance_.' She whispered into his ear afterwards and he laughed low in his throat and said _'Maybe._ ' Before turning her over and kissing his way down her back. Enough talking for now.

 

 

'We are going to find them tomorrow.' He said to her one night as they undressed in a small room by the side of the main road through another little down at heel town.

'Are you ready?' She asked.

You could almost feel the camp from where they had stopped. Was it the nanites or just the hum of a large group of people camped out under the sky that made the air feel so charged up? They must be just beyond the next ridge.

He just grunted.

'Yeah, me neither.... I just...hope they are ok.'

'Rachel and Miles? They will be fine. Biding their time waiting for us to ride in and rescue them. No doubt being sensible.' He laughed up at her as she stretched out on top of him.

'You remember what I asked you in Corpus Christi, Charlie?'

'I remember, Bass. There will be a price to pay, right?'

'That's not what I said at all.'

'No, but that is what this comes down to.'

'Maybe.'

'Are you ready?' He asked her this time.

She couldn't answer and so just kissed him instead.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this is done. The end of my revolution thinking done I think. 
> 
> And this last chapter completed only at the urging of sammxhill who was determined to see it through somehow! Thanks for all your messages! I would have left it unfinished for sure without your weekly cheering....

The sound of a voice reaching above the tents. Bass stopped for a moment. Was that amplified or was it just the way the sound bounced around and down the valley they were in?

‘Charlie c’mon.’ Bass said he pulled a wide eyed Charlie behind him.

People swarmed around them, dressed for a show, hair wound up in braids on their heads, tunics, scarves, and look of particular light in their eyes, intent on getting to the main tent to hear the preacher talk and see the nanites do their light show. To see the night sky fill up with wonder enough to persuade the desperate, lonely and poor that God was here with them. She said nothing. Slipped back into the darkness and the shadows and tugged him with her.

‘C’mon sweetheart. Everyone’s leaving for the main tent now, we gotta get back to see if Miles and Rachel are being kept in those wagons out the back. Move. _Move_.’

 

_'...and God, God in his glory...'_

A ribbon of sound and Bass thought back to a time of loudspeakers and light shows, Super Bowl, driving in a car singing along to the radio, all the things they had lost. He turned to Charlie to tell her but realised she wouldn't know what he meant.

 

_'...and from Peter....you are a chosen generation... a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light..'_

 

Bass stopped for a moment to consider Charlie who had her chin tilted up to listen to the words carrying across the night sky.

Giddy, sticky pleasure. That was Charlotte. God only knew what she thought when she heard those words.

‘C’mon, move now.' He whispered at her rough and urgent.

'We miss our chance tonight and it will be a week before we get the chance again. I’m not doing this anymore.’ He took her by the arm and marched her along the back line of the tents towards the wagons at the back of the camp.

The noise of the crowd was building, excited chatter and the sound of instruments tuning up. They stepped carefully across the space between the back of a row of small tents and the beginning of the row of wagons that were used to tow equipment when the preachers moved on. Peered into each one, nothing but supplies and equipment in the first few. Charlie shook her head to clear it and felt her heart thump in her chest as sweat broke out down the back of her neck. She ran her finger under the line of corded leather around her collarbones. The last weeks of travel had stripped her even leaner, bones all angles, all softness gone. She scratched at her hairline as she watched Bass hoist himself out of sight into the dark of another large covered wagon.

 

Ahead she watched as a group of men spilled out of tents and into the shadowy torch light on the path between wagons. She grabbed Bass as he tumbled quickly out of the wagon and pulled him to the side, pointing at the men who had begun to follow the tail end of the column of people making their way up to the main tent to catch the show. As the back of the camp fell quiet and Charlie and Bass checked the next wagons.

 

Halfway along the line she heard Bass suck in a big breath of air as he poked his head beneath the flap of canvas of the wagon he had hoisted himself up onto to check. He turned to Charlie.

‘Miles.’

She hoisted herself up next to him and peered into the gloom of the wagon and saw Miles tied to the rail.

‘Where’s Mom?’ she whispered as she crowded in to him and began to saw through the ropes around his hands.

‘Charlie.’ He fell against her as the ties gave and for a moment he held her by the shoulders and pulled her into a hug even while she tried to cut the ropes from around his feet.

‘Was that Bass?’ he asked as she freed his feet.

‘Yes, yes it was.’ The wagon cover pulled back again and Bass signalled them to jump out.

Miles stumbled slightly against them both as he landed on his feet and then righted himself by resting on Bass' shoulder. Bass shrugged him off and continued to scan the areas around them.

‘Rachel?’

‘I have no idea. Check the rest of the wagons I suppose? I know she’s okay, I heard her talking earlier today as they took her somewhere.’

‘Bass, how are you even here? Charlie I expected but you…’

‘Charlie can explain it all to you later Miles. Let’s get Rachel and you can get out of here.

And that was when Charlie knew for sure. He was leaving them again.

 

 

 

 

'I thought you'd be attached.' Charlie whispered at Bass later that night as they circled the outside of the tents. Rachel had been persuaded, to regroup and not just fight on and on. They headed along the road again towards the south, planning to use the travel paths either side of the old motorways on their way out of town. Keeping low.

Bass grimaced. 'No. I'm not like that.'

Charlie stumbled in the dark. She waited for him to talk.

'Miles and me...we were different kinds of men at the end. That's why I should have said no to you.... Because now... sometimes I know that it looks like I'm the guy who got his hands dirty for a cause. But it wasn't like that. Not really at the end. I'm not okay Charlie. Not anymore. Can't remember last time I was. I like you enough to tell you that.'

It was the most he had ever said about himself to her. Every too young, not good enough, don't know, not worth enough nerve in her body fired.

They walked along quietly together. Charlie was trying to think to herself, ' _this is okay, you are okay, this will be okay..... after all this is the least of what has been lost.....'_ but the accumulation of gone stuck heavy in her throat. All those thoughts, all those people swam before her eyes, Dad, Maggie, Nora, Jason....'

She had a thought, a flash of memory, some warm hearted adult accepting her hand made paper hat as a gift. 'Darling, I'll wear it forever.' Fuck, was it Bass? She couldn't remember. She buried her head in her hands, grinding the furrows of her brow into her fingers, trying to rub the jab of pain and frustration away. She did what knew. One foot in front of the other. Family ahead. Follow that down.

Miles and Rachel walked ahead of them, moonlight picking out the faint shape of their shadows and they walked along the footpath beaten out by the side of the road. Miles turned around to watch them for a moment, the whiteness of his teeth gleaming in the dark. Was it a grimace or a smile? Unfair either way. Charlie could feel one of her incisors wobbling from one too many hits already. How on earth did he still have all his teeth?

'I want more.' She said suddenly to Bass.

He said nothing. 'Can't you just...?' She asked.

'Can you? Every time you come I see guilt flash across your face. When we kiss it's still against your better judgement.

' 'I can't imagine this all without you.'

'I know Charlie. I don't know how to do any of this without this, without Charlie, without Miles...and.... without you all. It has been a hard lesson. Sometimes I fucking hate Miles.... the fucking light of my life and I hate him.. I don't ... I won't... And Rachel. No.'

'I've wanted.... us.'

'Well. I'm sorry. Not true anyway. You wanted to be important to someone. I was there.'  He ignored her squeak of impatience and kept on. 'Like you think Miles is important to your mom.... You've got shit role models, sweetheart.'

'Miles is important to my mom'.

'Twenty some years of decisions that disprove that theory. She having a mid course correction? Fuck.'

She said nothing and the silence stretched on as they walked.

'You've always been good at saying things I don't want to hear.'

They walked along in silence again for a long while. ‘Christ, Charlie....  All that talk we've had, those nights when you felt there was something you had to choose. I take it all back that's all. No choices, no consequences. Seriously Charlie, I’d just rather not know. This is just my version of growing the fuck up. Okay? I’m not asking you for anything anymore. I'm just leaving.’

'Again, but that's not what I wanted.'

'It's what there is. Why did you come and find me anyway?'.

'Because I wanted to.'

'That's a bad answer.'

'I know. When I can imagine a life without you I will let you know.'

'Okay. And then?'

'Well. And then we will see.'

'I don't deserve it.'

She huffed out a huge breath. 'Fuck no.'

'Okay.'

'Okay. And so we'll see.'

'Where are we going?' he asked.

'I don't know, Bass. Tonight? Safe. Away. Soon? A big white bed with sheets.'

'Corpus Christi?

'Okay.'

'Okay.'


End file.
